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BATS reported a good performance in what they describe as a difficult environment in the 9 month stage to 30 September.This was due to continuing pressure on consumer disposable income worldwide and the slow economic recovery in Western Europe.In addition in common with other international businesses they also saw a negative effect from currencies with movements in many of the Group's key trading currencies resulting in a 9.6% decline in reported revenue. Despite this they say "the Group continues to perform well and we are on track to deliver another year of good earnings growth at constant rates of exchange."

The shares are off a bit first thing as defensive stocks struggle a bit in a recovering market and the update was fairly drab. In addition they don't look especially cheap trading on around 15x to 16x earnings but as ever the main attraction remains the 4%+ yield which continues to grow steadily.

Computacenter (CCC) - the dyslexic computer services company also reported a fairly dull IMS in which they confirmed they are trading in line with their expectations for the year. Again currencies had an effect turning a flat revenue performance into a small fall. Otherwise the UK was good, Germany showing some signs of recovery and France just about through the worst. With cash on the balance sheet, a fairly positive outlook from the company and some prospects for improvements in operational performance in Europe it seems worth sticking with on a P/E of 12 to 13x and a likely well covered 3%+ yield.

Meanwhile if you are looking for excitement we have had a positive trading update from Plus500 (PLUS) today. This highly volatile Israeli tech stock which provides an online trading platform suggested that after a strong Q3 plus their own recent initiatives and with the recent increases in market volatility that they will see full year revenues and profits ahead of current forecasts. It looks like this could lead to them being about 10% or so ahead of the current 80 cents so say 90 cents maybe as the market has marked the share up by around that amount this morning.

This would still leave it on around 9 to 10x with a yield of around 4.5% in sterling post the Israeli withholding tax. This yield is about in line with the more stable and longer established competitor IG Group, although they do trade on a higher P/E of 14 to 15x. Given this and the fact that PLUS shares were trading much higher than this earlier in the year I guess there could be scope for some further upside if investors are reassured / excited by these numbers and choose to re-rate the shares further, but if you choose to buy / hold / trade them be prepared for a volatile ride as shown by the chart below.

Note they have a conference call and webcast at 10am today (see RNS for details) - so might be worth listening to that if you are interested in this one and I guess it could also move the shares depending how it is received.